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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Vatican City, 7 May 2014 (VIS) –
Counsel, that gift by which the Holy Spirit enables us to make
concrete decisions according to the logic of Jesus and the Gospel was
the theme of Pope Francis' catechesis during this Wednesday's general
audience.

The Holy Spirit “helps us to grow
positively both inwardly and in the community, and helps us not to
fall prey to selfishness or to our way of seeing things”. “The
essential condition for conserving this gift is prayer”, said the
Holy Father, explaining that “we can all say the prayers we learnt
as children, but we can also approach God in our own words: Lord,
help me, advise me. What should I do now? And with prayer, we make
space for the Holy Spirit to come and help us in this moment, to
advise us on what we should do. We must never forget to pray. No-one
knows if we pray on the bus or walking along the street: we can pray
in silence. Let us take advantage of these moments to pray … so
that the Holy Spirit may grant us the gift of counsel”.

In our intimacy with God, and listening
His Word, we gradually leave aside our personal logic … and within
us there matures a profound harmony with the Lord which leads us, in
turn, to ask ourselves what His will is. It is the Spirit who advises
us, but we must make space for this to happen. It is necessary to
give space and pray to so that [the Holy Spirit] may always help us”.

And, like the other gifts of the Holy
Spirit, counsel is “a treasure for the entire Christian community”,
since the Lord does not speak to us only in the intimacy of the
heart, but also through the voice and the witness of our brothers …
who help us to shed light on our lives and to recognise the Lord's
will”. In this respect, Francis mentioned that once, in the
Argentine diocese of Lujan, a young man with “tattoos and earrings
and all those things” recounted a very serious situation to him in
confession, and said that his mother had advised him to turn to the
Virgin Mary. “She was a woman with the gift of counsel. This mother
did not know how to solve her son's problem but she indicated a sure
path to him. … And effectively the boy said to me that: 'I looked
to Our Lady and I felt that I should do this, this and this...'. And
I didn't have to speak”, he recalled, “as the mother and the boy
himself had already said everything. This is the gift of counsel.
You, mothers who have this gift, ask for it for your children. Being
able to give advice to one's children is a gift from God”.

The Holy Father concluded by citing
Psalm 16, which says: “I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the
Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken”. “May the
Spirit always instil in our hearts that certainty, and in this way
fill us with peace, and may we always ask for the gift of counsel!”.

Vatican City, 7 May 2014 (VIS) – At
the end of today's general audience, in the greetings in different
languages, the Pope addressed in German the relatives and friends of
the new Swiss Guards who yesterday swore their allegiance and assured
them that “the Holy Spirit will drive out all fear”. He went on
to speak about the World Youth Day to be celebrated in Poland in
2016. “Let us begin our path towards the meeting in Poland”, he
said; “Let us walk together, united in love and prayer, following
St. John Paul II's invitation to be always young in the Holy Spirit”.

In Italian, he greeted the Red Cross
volunteers who are celebrating 150 years since the foundation of
this organisation; the families of the young people of the San
Patrignano House, to whom he confirmed his support “against any
type of drug abuse”, and the Italian Confcommercio Ascom Group from
Padua, to whom he gave encouragement in this moment of economic
difficulty.

The Pontiff also invited pilgrims to
visit the tombs of the apostles so that “there might grow the
Paschal joy of the Resurrection, which is also made manifest in
certain charitable works”.Tomorrow, Thursday, the Church will
recite the Supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii, the Blessed Virgin
Mary of the Holy Rosary, and Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro
Parolin will be present. Therefore, he urged the faithful to invoke
Mary's intercession “so that the Lord may grant mercy and peace to
the Church and to all the world”, and encouraged them to take
special care to pray the rosary during this month of May.

Vatican City, 7 May 2014 (VIS) – The
Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff today
announced that this coming Sunday, 11 May, at 10:30 a.m., Cardinal
Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, will
take possession of the diaconate of Sant'Anselmo all'Aventino, Piazza
dei Cavalieri di Malta, 5.